Giants of the Clyde by Robert Jeffrey

The Great Ships and the Great Yards

There was a time when a significant proportion of all the ships afloat
around the world were "Clydebuilt". As this book's jacket
reveals, even as late as the 1950s, around a seventh of the total
of the world's seagoing tonnage was built on a river which is neither
particularly wide, nor spectacularly long. "Giants of the Clyde: The
Great Ships and the Great Yards" by Robert Jeffrey does not set out
to provide a comprehensive account of the story of shipbuilding on
the River Clyde. Instead, as the author says in his introduction:
"it is an occasionally personal, and perhaps idiosyncratic, selection of
tales that appeal to a life-long Clydesider, just one of a huge tribe of
'boat daft' Scots of all ages who have lived near the river. In it are stories
of famous ships and the yards, large and small, that built them, and
hopefully give something of the flavour of a unique place and its
peoples, the folk who made the ships that made a mark on the world."

The book opens with a brief account of the technological advances in shipbuilding at the beginning of the 1800s
in west-central Scotland. The "Vulcan", the world's first
iron-hulled boat, was built in Lanarkshire in 1819 to be towed along
the Monklands Canal, while the "Comet" began Europe's first commercially
successful steamboat service in August 1812. Combine the steam engine
with the iron hull, and the rest, as they say, is history.

As the author promises, the content is varied. You can perhaps best think
of this book as a series of well-written articles about particular
topics or moments in the story of shipbuilding on the River Clyde.
Chapter two looks at the story of the famous clipper the Cutty Sark,
built at Denny's in Dumbarton. We
then move on to Denny's role in building seaplanes, hovercraft, and
ferries for use on the Irrawaddy River in Burma. We then look at life
in the shipyards of Greenock
and Port Glasgow; at
the role of Lithgow's yard; and at dockland regeneration and modern survivors
among the ships built on the Clyde; at Fairfield's of Govan and its submarines.
Later in the book we read about the essential work of riveters in the shipbuilding
process; the role of John Brown's of Clydebank in building battleships and
ocean liners; the story of the Royal Yacht Britannia; and
the decline of the industry and the efforts of workers and unions to halt
and reverse that decline. We conclude with a look at the way continuing
innovation is allowing environmentally-friendly ferries for CalMac
to be built at Ferguson's in Port Glasgow.
The result nicely captures the atmosphere of a highly distinctive place during a unique period
and is an excellent way in to what could easily become a large and complex subject.